


Seeds

by paperlesscrown



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Christmas fic, F/M, Future Fic, Original Character(s), Parent!Bughead, Post-Canon, future!Bughead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-27 16:15:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17165156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperlesscrown/pseuds/paperlesscrown
Summary: Riverdale was a lost memory, a foreign word to their children. Driving back home for the first time in years, Jughead and Betty just want to find a Christmas tree. But they find something else along the way: a glimmer of hope, and an inkling of healing.





	Seeds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [somethinglikegumption](https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethinglikegumption/gifts).



> Merry Christmas to the wonderful somethinglikegumption/jordansconnor. This was written from the following prompt for the Bughead Secret Santa Exchange: Bughead taking their child to pick out a Christmas tree.
> 
> This got a little more intense than the fluff I was planning on, but I hope you enjoy it (sorry it's a little late)!

“Eliot, last warning: get off the Kindle while we’re driving. You’ll give yourself a headache.”

Eliot Jones, with all the typical world-weariness of a 13-year-old, rolled her eyes and put her mother’s Kindle down. Her brother, 10-year-old Henry, smiled smugly at her - a smile he thought would be missed by their parents.

“And don’t think I can’t see that Nintendo Switch hiding underneath your jacket there, buddy,” Jughead said, eyeing his son through the rearview mirror. “No-one concentrates _that hard_ looking down at their lap.”

Eliot giggled as her brother grudgingly surrendered the game console to their father’s outstretched hand. He made a face at her. She stuck out her tongue.

“Immature,” he said, shaking his head.

“Juvenile,” she replied.

Henry racked his brain, before settling on a word he learned from a book he was reading. “ _Impudent_.”

“Daft pig.” Eliot was pleased. She learned _that_ from her dad.

Betty whirled around in her seat. “Eliot, Henry, according to Google Maps, we are only twenty minutes away from Riverdale. _So help me,_ we are going to make those last twenty minutes _civil_.”

Eliot straightened up and gave her brother a swift, silencing look. He understood immediately. _‘So help me’_ was the telltale sign that they did _not_ want to cross their mother. She was usually amiable and easygoing - a little stricter than their father, but fair - but she was a force to be reckoned with when pushed too far.

Besides, Eliot wasn’t foolish: she’d always been perceptive like her parents, and even now, she could feel the significance and weight of the journey they were on. This was no ordinary ride out of town. She’d watched them closely all week, ever since they announced over dinner that they were driving to Riverdale to pick out a Christmas tree.

“Riverdale, yay!” Henry yelled out. “Wait. Where _is_ that?”

“It’s a couple of hours away from here, buddy,” Jughead said. “Also, please close your mouth while you’re eating.”

“Why are we driving a couple of hours to _pick out a tree_?” Eliot asked. “Can’t we just pick one here?”

She caught her mother’s swift glance at her father, before turning to face her. “It’s got the best trees in the state, hon. I wanted to make Christmas a bit special this year - you’re meeting your cousins for the first time, remember?”

“Oh, yeah,” Henry piped up. “Jupiter and Dagger.”

“ _Juniper_ and _Dagwood,_ ” Jughead corrected. “Also, again: mouth. Eating. Too gross.” Henry cackled as his dad leaned over and ruffled his dark locks.

“And besides,” Betty added, “we thought it might be nice to do a drive as a family. When was the last time we all went on an adventure?”

“Uh, last week,” Eliot replied. “When you took us to that haunted house and pointed out all the fake stuff.”

“Oh, that wasn’t adventurous, Eliot,” Betty replied to her daughter. “That was _educational_.”

“You guys ruined it for me,” Henry whined. “I thought ghosts were real.”

“Well, they’re not,” his father said.

…

But Eliot knew that ghosts were all too real.

Maybe not the supernatural kind, but the kind that were conjured of memory. She believed in them, because sometimes, they haunted her parents.

Her brother was too young to know, but _she_ remembered the name of the town they were driving to _._ Riverdale was a logo emblazoned on an old yearbook in the attic, a word on the edge of quiet conversations. It was also a harbinger of sorrow: the one time she’d ever seen her mother cry, she was being embraced by her father on the porch, who asked her quietly to go in and make a cup of tea. She’d listen to their conversation through the door as she held her mother’s tea in her hands, the cup clattering slightly on the saucer.

“Do you miss it sometimes, Jug?”

“Of course, love,” he replied. “We’ll go back one day.”

Betty sighed. “I don’t think it’s a matter of going back. Could we ever really leave Riverdale? I think it’ll always be in our blood.”

“You’re right. And it’s in theirs, too - Eliot and Henry. Maybe we’ll take them when they’re old enough. Once Henry sleeps through the night.”

She gave a tired laugh. “We’ll be waiting ten years, then.”

He kissed her forehead. “You’re a wonder. I’ll stay up with you tonight.”

After that, Eliot had asked about Riverdale only once more, when she brought in the mail and saw a letter addressed to her father. “It says it’s from Pop Tate, dad,” she said as she handed it to him. “From... Riverdale. What’s Riverdale?”

He drew her close. “A place that’s very special to me and your mom. And Pop Tate… well, he’s a big reason why it’s special.”

“Can I go there one day?”

“I hope so, peanut.”

And that was that. Afterwards, Riverdale remained nothing more than a whisper of a memory.

“Exit to Riverdale next!” Henry yelled out cheerfully in the backseat, drawing Eliot of her thoughts. “Did you see that, dad?”

Until now, of course.

On car drives, she was used to her mother’s subtle, covert touches around her father - usually a hand curled into his hair, or tucked slightly into the odd crown beanie he’d wear every now and then. On the drive to Riverdale, however, she noticed that their hands were linked together throughout the drive - fingers interlaced and settled on her dad’s lap. She wondered whether her mom was afraid. Or whether her dad was. Her dad once told her that it was okay to be afraid - it was what you did even _while_ being afraid that mattered.

Still, these were her parents, who rode motorcycles and ran the local paper and rolled their eyes at “ghost tours”. In her eyes, they were invincible. She didn’t want them to be sad or fearful.

She leaned forward in her seat, wanting to distract both of them, planting her chin on her mom’s shoulder. “Mom, tell me how you named me again.”

“You’ve heard this before, hon.”

“Please?”

“Okay. But only because you asked so nicely.”

For the next ten minutes, Eliot listened as her mother told the familiar, elaborate story of how her father proposed - a ruse involving a library, an old card catalogue, and a copy of one of her favourite novels, _Middlemarch_ by George Eliot - and how it led to her name. Quietly, she willed her mother to remain distracted as her father took the exit off the highway into Riverdale, and the trees thickened around them.

…

Riverdale was beautiful - a town built around the picturesque Sweetwater River, dense with woods and fragrant with the scent of maple. Eliot watched as her parents rolled down their windows simultaneously, the bitter cold wafting through.

“Breathe it in, Betts,” Jughead murmured. His hand tightened on hers.

They drove on, each of them falling silent for their own reasons - Henry watching the scenery go by, Eliot watching her parents, who were seemingly lost in a distant reverie with each other.

The distant rumble of motors interrupted the quiet. Henry swivelled around in his seat. “Hey, cool! There’s a whole bunch of bikes behind us, dad!”

Eliot quickly turned around. Twelve bikes in all, she counted them. From her mother’s early tutelage in the garage, she could tell even without seeing the famous emblem that the bikes were Harley Davidsons. Sitting atop of them were twelve riders, some with passengers behind them, all wearing black leather.

She was alarmed. She looked to her mother in panic, but was surprised to see her smiling. Betty turned to Jughead. “How long do think they’ve been tailing us?”

He chuckled. “Since Greendale, probably.”

The leader of the pack advanced towards the car until it was driving right beside the driver side. Jughead rolled his window down. “Was this really necessary, fellas?”

“No Serpent stands alone, Jones,” the leader replied. “Especially when they’re coming back from exile.”

“Oh, yeah? Even when the exile was self-imposed?”

Through his helmet, Eliot could see the rider grinning. “The laws are different for royalty,” he said. “Welcome back, king and queen.” And with that, he dropped back to join the rest of the gang.

Henry practically jumped out of his seat with questions. “Dad, did that guy know you? Why did they call you king and queen?! AM I A PRINCE?!”

“We’ll explain to you when we get back home, Henry,” Betty replied.

The pack tailed them all along the main road, a foreboding, powerful entourage that looked a little comical behind their old, beaten-up station wagon. The riders accompanied them until they veered off to what looked like a small city of trailers. Jughead and Betty stuck their arms out of the car in a half-wave, half-salute, and Eliot could hear a distant roar of cheering.

“What was _that?_ ” Eliot asked.

Betty and Jughead looked at each other. “There’s a lot more to it than a 10-minute drive, Eliot,” Jughead said gently. “Patience. We’re getting close.”

They passed an old, dull painted sign. Henry read it out loud. “ _‘Welcome to Riverdale, the town with pep’._ Mom, what does ‘pep’ mean?

“It means lots of energy, buddy.”

Henry nodded, understanding. “Well, those bikers sure had a lot of pep.”

…

Before long, another sign came to view - much brighter this time, and not merely painted on a board but crafted in neon lights, hovering above an old diner. _Pop’s Chock’lit Shoppe. Open 24 hours._ Below it was a parking lot full of freshly cut trees.

Eliot had to admit that her mom was onto something - the trees _were_ far more beautiful than the ones she’d seen in their hometown. They were greener, more lush and more full. She wondered what they smelled like, whether they would retain that faint maple scent that seemed to waft everywhere.

“Alright, bundle up, everyone,” Jughead said, as he turned off the engine. “It’s colder out there than it is back home.”

They stepped out. The parking lot was mostly empty, other than some early stragglers. A few people seemed to recognise their parents, expressing excitement upon seeing them. Henry leaned in to whisper to his sister. “Are mum and dad celebrities and we didn’t know it?”

“Shh, I’m trying to hear.”

An elderly man was the first to converse with Betty and Jughead. “How long has it been now? Right after graduation, wasn’t it, that you took off?”

“Seventeen years ago, sir,” Betty confirmed.

“Oh, come, come - ‘sir’ isn’t necessary, you know.”

Jughead laughed. “Old habits die hard, Principal Weatherbee.”

The old man smiled. “You know, it’s really good to see you both. It’s almost as if… as if this town is healing.”

They moved on. Jughead turned to his children. “Eliot, Henry, how about you go and have a look at the trees, huh? Go pick one out - make sure it’s a good one. We’ll just be chatting with a few people.”

“Sweet!” Henry yelled as he bolted into a row of blue spruce trees. Eliot tried to look, but her eyes followed her parents. They were soon greeted and embraced by a man in a white uniform and apron, who’d come bounding out of the diner when he saw Betty and Jughead.

“Eliot, I think I found one!” Henry called out.

Eliot followed the sound of her brother’s voice. She smiled when she looked at the tree he was standing in front of - it was typical Henry to pick the biggest out of the lot.

“That one’s _huge,_ ” she said. “That’s not gonna fit on the roof of the car.” She looked around at the other trees. Many of them were only marginally smaller than the one Henry picked out.

Except for the one on the end of the row.

It stood out a little from the rest, not only because it was smaller than all the other trees surrounding it, but also because it was flanked by an even tinier version of itself, its roots bound up in a hessian bag that looked like it was full of soil.

“That one comes free with it, kid,” a voice spoke from behind them, seemingly emerging from the trees. Eliot and Henry jumped and turned around, seeing a young black man dressed in white. “It’s a little spruce sapling - didn’t spring up in time to be sold, but I just didn’t have the heart to throw it away.”

“Are you a ghost?” Henry whispered, half-hopeful.

Eliot rolled her eyes. The man laughed. “A ghost? Nah, kid - just someone who works at the diner. This is my uniform. It’s a little cheesy, but dad insists on keeping it.”

“‘Dad’?” Eliot suddenly made the connection. “Pop Tate. You’re Pop’s son.”

“Sure am. Name’s Tyrone. You guys buying a tree?”

“Yes,” Henry replied. “We want a big one, but--”

Eliot interrupted. “ _He_ wants a big one. But it won’t fit on our car. Or actually, in our house.” Her mind was cast back to their living room, which was crammed full of books and folders and her parents’ collected knick-knacks.

“Well, you’d do well taking this one, then. And take the sapling with you.”

“What are we gonna do with it?” Henry asked. “We can’t have two Christmas trees!”

“Replant it,” Tyrone said, shrugging. “Or give it to someone special.”

Eliot looked thoughtfully at the two trees. She turned to Henry.

“Maybe we can do both.”

…

Jughead was surprised by his daughter’s question. Was there somewhere in Riverdale that was special to him - more special than any place in the whole world?

He didn’t need to ask how Eliot somehow knew that there was more to Riverdale than just a Christmas tree farm. She’d always been uncannily insightful, even as a little girl.  

 _She gets it from her mother,_ he thought.

He turned to Betty. She read his thoughts. “It’s gotta be that one, huh?” she said with a smile.

“Are you sure?”

“It’s still on the market,” she said. “I’m pretty sure it’s empty.”

That’s how they found themselves on a quiet suburban road, parking in front of a formidable house with a lamppost at the top of a small flight of stone steps. A large ‘FOR SALE’ sign dominated the front yard.

“Where are we?” Henry asked.

“I’ll tell you more outside, son,” Jughead replied, opening his car door.  

Amazingly, the ladder - _his_ ladder - was still there, propped up against the side of the house, somehow missed in the move, or perhaps left behind. Everything was just as Jughead remembered it - the red door he’d once kicked down, the perfect white walls, the grey roof he’d once pulled Betty to, the two of them looking over the town one last time on the night of their graduation.

“This spot will do,” Betty said, motioning to the patch of grass below her old bedroom window.

Eliot and Henry clung to their mother as Jughead clawed out the cold soil with his hands. Quietly, she recounted to them how their father climbed a ladder to the very window above them to tell her what he felt about her. Jughead listened, delighting in the details, but knowing that one day, they would have to tell them about the other, darker stories that went on in the house - the father who deluded himself into thinking that he could cleanse the town by killing, the mother whose brutality she thought was love, the sister who had lost a soulmate and spent many bitter years searching for something to fill the void.

But also, of course, there too was the girl who survived it all, and became their fierce wonder of a mother.

“Can you guys help me pack the soil back in?” he asked.

It was an odd sight to anyone walking by - a family of four kneeling in the dirt, planting a small spruce sapling below a window. Afterwards, they stood around the sapling, the two adults patiently answering their children's questions - some of them requiring a longer response. Where did Uncle Archie used to live? How did he meet Aunt Veronica? What was the abandoned construction site with her last name - Lodge - on it? Who were the bikers, and were mom and dad really royalty? Night began to fall, and it was only then that the four of them began walking back to the car, Jughead and Betty promising their children more stories on the drive home. 

Henry wrapped his arms around his mom's waist as they walked back. "Your life is so big, mom," he said.

Jughead smiled at that. He knew what his son meant: that there was so much of them that was still unknown to their children. But he loved the other sense of it - the idea that he and Betty had lived life large, defying the darkness that once threatened to swallow them whole.

And they would return. He always knew they would. Maybe not to stay, but to pay tribute. To show their children the heart from which they were forged. 

"Will we come back, dad?" Eliot asked as she fastened her seatbelt.

Betty and Jughead looked at each other. "Hopefully," he said. Betty nodded at him.  _We will,_ she mouthed.

He turned on the engine, taking one last look at the house. "Maybe we'll plant more trees."


End file.
